


frozen knife

by caitss



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Blood, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Major Illness, No Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 21:06:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14457741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caitss/pseuds/caitss
Summary: Maki doesn’t believe in miracles, but she tries to work one.





	frozen knife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cosmicpoet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/gifts).



> i’d like 2 thank kate for telling me to make this ily kate

Kaito’s illness was sudden. 

It came out of the blue, in the form of hacking up blood and prescription medicine. Maki wasn’t prepared, she wasn’t prepared for the world to rip her happy ending from her desperate hands. Karma cackles at her, it’s leer the nadir of suffering, the juxtaposition of it’s shaking shoulders, all making up the muddy painting of misfortune. The night Kaito’s diagnosed and hospitalized, Maki screams until the whole universe can hear her, ripping her hair out of its scrunches and sobbing, hunching over and drowning in her own misery. 

The world keeps spinning, and she wishes it would stop, stop to realize that making Kaito pay for the negative space where her heart should be, is the most unjust form of punishment. Maki burns her skin, the flames of his lighter licking at the pale parchment she calls flesh - engulfed by the pain of two people. A flurry of knives and blood, reused bandages and the empty capsules of antidepressants, they make up her reaction, they become her response. 

When she breaks out of her own prison, she finds herself at the door of his room, the eerie white stainless, close to her skin that was covered by thick layers of a turtleneck. Maki opens the door, the creak ringing in her ears, the sight of Kaito laying in the bed too much for her. The breath is knocked out of her, and she stumbles back, crashing into the wall of the hallway. It’s as if the world stopped to fasten it’s chains around her frail neck, as if it halted to hear her breath hitch. 

The languid afternoon rays spill through the window of the hospital room, and she finds that the world has gone back to moving underneath her feet. Maki breathes, her heart of stone chipping away to reveal a raw gash. She stares at his peaceful form, reaching out to touch his cheek. Maki can feel the blood pulsating underneath, the warmth, all the things she could never have. 

“You’re dying.” It’s really all she can say; the sweet words of love rot in her throat, the empty truth leaking in. “And I can’t do anything.” Maki’s words are accompained by the chirping of a bird, and the ruffle of feathers. They drown her out, even the slightest sounds bury the voice of a empty shell, the smallest noise is the roar of a lion. No matter how abrasive and rough she is, the world can still crush her, and can still let her blood become an ocean of misery. 

Her thoughts are abstract, twisting shapes and blurry memories, the face of Kaito, the face of anyone, becoming a empty space, a blank sheet. Maki’s hands tremble, and the tears in her eyes roll down like ocean waves, like the beach on their anniversary day. “Kaito...” She murmurs, her tongue numb and heat pricking in the back of her eyes, “You... why...?” Maki’s words become a silent sob, incoherent and a frenzy of tears and agony. 

She doesn’t even understand what she’s saying anymore, it’s only white noise to fill the space where he’s supposed to be. Maki shakes his body, aware that he’s still here, that he’s alive, and yet somehow trying to save him. “Wake up!” She shouts, and it’s so like her, to destroy a happy dream, to shove someone around, to use physical force, because everything else about her can’t save anyone. He stirs, his eyes opening, the light that used to be there dull. 

“H-Haru...maki...?” Kaito asks, and a cold wave of regret washes over her. “Kaito... you’re awake...” Maki drags out, the words she would have said dissipating into air, the curse of a coward bestowed upon her. “You- I woke you...”  
“You’re really-“

He breaks into a fit of coughs, blood splattering on her turtleneck, his muscles going loose as he hacks. Maki makes a choked noise, the tears in her eyes sparking again, a new tragedy to scream over. She wonders if this is because of her, because she was being a selfish dumbass and was trying to wake him. She’s scared. He could die right now, and they’d say she killed him, that it’s all the girl with red eyes and no heart’s fault- 

The fit stops, and Kaito remains still, a thin line of blood dripping down the corner of his mouth. Red stains his hospital gown, and the heavy layers she wore have speckles of crimson on them. “I’m sorry.” Maki says, after a minute of tense silence. “I-it’s fine...” He replies, his voice shaky and his breath shallow. “A-anyway... Harumaki... I... have something to tell you...” A new emotion coats his voice, something she couldn’t quite recognize. But it’s so very Kaito, that it almost unites the noose of worries around her neck.  
“Yes?” 

“I... if you try to be a better person... I can get... better.”  
Maki stares in astonishment, the words he spewed the most unbelievable thing since fairytales. “That’s stupid,” she scoffs, and kicks herself for being too harsh. “I mean- how would my attitude save your life?”

“I- I- dunno... but ya g-gotta believe in me! P-put your faith... in the luminary of the s-starts!” Some of his old bravado seeps in, and if she looks hard enough, she can see the hope and determination in his eyes. But it’s only for a second, because when she blinks, it’s gone. Maki looks at him, and finally realizes how horrible he looks. His skin is slick with sweat, some of his hair sticks to his face, and bags circle his kind eyes, worn down with experience.  
She never thought she’d describe Kaito like that, but she never thought that she’d be standing over a hospital bed, watching the love of her life slowly die, either. 

“Fine. I’ll... try it. For you.” Even if she has to be kind to the lying asshole, even if she has to act like she cares about the teachings of a god made of pixie dust, even if she has to listen to delusions of a lethargic magician, she’ll do this one thing for Kaito. Maki doesn’t know if she believes his weak words, she doesn’t quite understand why she’s agreeing, but something inside her listens to him. Maybe it’s the crazy hope that Kaito will survive - she doesn’t know, and she doesn’t want to gain a knowledge of why. 

Maki can’t stay here any longer, the weight of blurry memories and the sound of a monitor too much for her. She looks at him, takes in his unhealthy appearance, how thin he is. Maki then says, “I have to go now. I love you, Kaito.”  
“Love y-ya too, Harumaki..”  
She would kiss him, but she feels so inferior, so low, just like dirt. Maki instead stumbles out, the hisses of degratory voices and the pointing of bodiless hands all around her. The past digs itself up, crawling out of its grave and chasing her throughout the hallway, even when she gets to her car and locks herself inside it. 

All her mistakes pile up, all of the nights of agony, the millions of times she scratched until her skin was raw, they all become one. His blood, dried on her cracked hands, not quite there, and yet somehow visible. Maki punches the glass of the window, the shatter ricocheting off of walls. Her knuckles are covered in thick blood before she knows it, and she’s engulfed by the most pleasurable of pain.  
Maki shakes, shakes like she’s the one hacking up her rotting lungs. She lets herself spiral out of control, as if she had a grip on reality in the first place. 

Eventually, when her dumb ass finally calms down and breathes correctly, she drives back home, her hands not entirely her own anymore. Her body is moving on autopilot, making decisions for her shut down spirit. Maki climbs out of the car, the sun beating against her covered body. She locks the car doors, goes in her house, and stands in the doorway. She can’t bring herself to walk around - every place in here is so Kaito, so full of his presence, it hurts her chest. Maki can’t think of him - the image of him sprawled out on a hospital bed fills her mind when she even thinks of him. Her stomach flips and twists, her negative space hollowed out completely. 

Maki doesn’t know, or quite remember what she does after that. All she knows is that she flipped herself upside down, treated everyone the way Kaito requested her to. She shakes hands, smiles, lies, because the hope she clings to becomes her life line. It’s so shallow, and obviously a lie spun up on the spot, and yet a part of her puts all of her faith into it. The string of words becomes her motivation, because she can make him better, even if the way she smiles doesn’t cure the blood spewing out of his mouth. 

And it’s so stupid - she’s so stupid, and she knows that, but she lets herself get lost in barren fantasies, where everyone is saved in the end. Maki gathers up the courage to visit him again, escaping her cell of cowardice and shadow bars. She opens the same white door, the paint chipping at the edges. Maki steps in, the hollowness of a lie wrapping around her, hugging her, but yet at the same time, strangling her. 

“Kaito.” She speaks, and he blinks at this, looking at her. “I’ve been getting better- I- so your health has to improve, right?” This time, her voice drowns out the ear spilitting sound of a monitor.  
“I- I will... Harumaki. I’ll n-never leave y-..you..”  
Maki is about the respond, when her voice loses all meaning and power, and the screech of a flatline overcomes her.

The monitor taunts her, and she hits the ground the second she hears the noise. Maki covers her ears, begging for the truth to go away, to disappear. The last lie was white like snow - his dying words, were something she never wanted to know. Maki screams more this time, her throat raw and sore. The link of fate that goes and comes around, breaks in half and pierces her frail body, agony enveloping the shards of a human being. The love that they carried with each other, vanishes into thin air, no trace of it ever being there, the only clue being the huddled form of a weak and empty girl, who can’t save anyone, not even with one million dollar smiles. 

Yearning for something other than a cheaply written story, the sins she had committed with her own hands drive her body and soul insane. Her world falls apart around her, the hospital room fading into nothing but an empty space. Even as she falls into utter darkness, she can’t even see the stars - of course not, the stars were meant for people with golden hearts and soothing chortles, beautiful morals and the kindness of a humbled being. The rays of hope that were once upon her ran through the abyss that she calls her mind, misled by the sun and moon, the cherry picking stories of happiness so many people tell, and the rays disappear into the clouds. 

And she drowns in her misery again, searching for a place where the fleeting wind goes, a place even beyond the moon that was hidden by a thick sheet of clouds.


End file.
